Sanitary appliances, for example hygienic toilet bowls or urinals fixed to a wall, have to be subjected to repeated cleaning and disinfecting operations in order to be able to maintain adequate hygienic sanitary conditions.
The prior art comprises hanging sanitary agents by means of hooking devices positioned in the water closet container, where one exists; the emission of the sanitary agent occurs at each discharge flush operation into the bowl.
Also known are sanitary agents which are fixed to the perimeter edge of the toilet bowl by means of a support; these sanitary agents are normally inserted in particular devices, like cages, provided with the support means, such as for example a plastic bracket, and which also include slits and/or holes such as to enable a portion of the sanitary agent to exit at each flush of the water.
The above-described sanitary agents, when struck by the water which irrigates the toilet bowl, enrich the water with the substances contained in the agents, thus providing the elements required for deterging, descaling, deodorising and/or disinfecting the bowl.
However, the above-described hygienic devices present some drawbacks, such as for example not guaranteeing an adequate anchoring to the perimeter edge of the bowl due to the fragility of the support means, with the consequence that there might be a possible accidental fall of the sanitary agent contained in the device into the toilet bowl.
Further, these devices are not very practical and hygienic; during manual cleaning of the edge of the toilet bowl or during the cleaning of the inside of the bowl by use of the toilet brush, the support means fixed to the edge of the bowl can be accidentally shifted and it is therefore necessary to reposition it. Further, on substitution of the sanitary agent, due to its consumption, it is necessary to act manually with ensuing operative and hygienic difficulties for the user, as the devices are often positioned in poorly-accessible places, in any case not ideal from the hygienic point of view.
Further, it is difficult to apply these devices to urinals, as urinals are generally lacking in edges or parts in relief on which the support means can be fixed. In the case of urinals or urinal bowls, pastilles are often used, positioned in the lower part thereof, at the position of the drain. However, these pastilles are generally partly washed away by the water flush and also cause undesired backsplash.
In recent times alternative solutions have been looked for, by eliminating the presence of the devices having a support means to be fixed to the perimeter edge of the bowl.
The prior art comprises certain solutions to the above-cited problem, in which sanitary agents, in particular solid or semi-solid soaps, can adhere stably to the internal wall of a WC bowl or a urinal in order to be subjected to regular water flushes.
For example, the international application published at no. WO2008/100393 in the name of Johnson and Sons proposes a solid soap able to adhere to the surface of the bowl and guarantee at the same time adequate cleaning thereof; however, this soap has to contain a very high amount of solid surfactant substance, between 75% and 99% in weight of the weight of the soap. European patent EP 1 086 199 in the name of Buck-Chemie GmbH describes a sanitary agent which can be applied directly on the surface of the sanitary appliance, the sanitary agent having a viscosity of at least 15,000 mPas and comprising an adhesion promoter such as poly oxy alcohol alkane, cellulose, etc. Further, EP application 2 141 221 in the name of Manitoba described a detergent pastille having a substantially flat adhesive surface for anchoring to a wall of the WC bowl and a shell-shaped surface such as to be subjected to the action of the flush water.
A problem of the above-described sanitary agents described in the above patent applications is that the user is usually required to manipulate the sanitary agents during their stage of application to the sanitary appliances to be treated. The manipulation is normally done in two ways: through the use of an applicator used for transferring the detergent agent, arranged thereon, onto the wall of the toilet bowl by means of compression there-against, or by manual application, thus by gripping the detergent agent with the hand and resting in on the wall, exerting a pressure thereon which is sufficient to cause its adhesion to the wall.
In order to prevent the detergent agent from coming into contact with the skin of the hand, a solution adopted in the art is to wrap the sanitary agent in a traditional protective film, which is partially removed on the side to be attached to the sanitary appliance immediately after use. Thereafter, the sanitary agent is attached to the wall of the sanitary appliance, after which the remaining part of the protective film is removed.
However, this operation is not comfortable and has the risk of a part of the protective film falling into the toilet bowl, or even the product itself doing so; further, the hand may still come into contact with the sanitary agent.
Further, another problem consists in the fact that often, before use, the known sanitary agents deform, with the consequence that the adhesive layers of the sanitary agents themselves displace, slipping downwards, or attach in an undesired way to the hands or other objects which they come into contact with.
Today there is still a particular demand for a solution to the technical problem of having a sanitary agent which enables a user to avoid direct contact with the components of the agent itself during application thereof and thus prevents undesired loss of the components of the sanitary agent before and during use thereof.
Therefore the aim of the present invention is to provide a sanitary agent for treatment of a sanitary appliance and a method of application of the sanitary agent to the sanitary appliance, which constitute a solution to the above-mentioned technical problems of the cited prior art.